Pulling the Strings
by Hrlyqin
Summary: Little insights, in no particular order, into the ways in which Mycroft sneaks behind the scenes of everyone's life to direct the action.
1. Chapter 1

**PULLING THE STRINGS, FILE 1: SAWYER**

**A/N: This story is my first in a very long time. It is intended to be slices of insight in to the way that Mycroft is behind the scenes of everyone's life, directing the action to suit his own needs. The chapters will be in no particular order and if you like the idea and have a chapter you'd like me to try my fingers at, please let me know in a review. Also a thousand thank yous to Roxanne-Michal for her help. Go read her story as soon as you're done with mine. Disclaimer: I own nothing except my own genius**

**XXXXXXXXXXXX**

Mycroft Holmes prided himself on being a private and. somewhat mysterious individual. He wore no hearts on his sleeve, no emotions on his face. Even his assistant Anthea (it was Thursday and she was always Anthea on Tuesdays and Thursdays) knew very little of him, and she knew more than most. It was a strategy, see. Keep yourself a blank canvas so you could become whatever the situation called for. John Watson had required something military and precise with an ominous air, a backroom chat like the terrorist have. His present subject needed something much more casual. So, with great disappointment, he set aside abduction plans and simply waited until the building was relatively deserted. He then went in to her office with Anthea and sat across from her calmly, projecting an air of reason and banality.

She looked up from her paperwork as he seated himself. "Can I help you?"

"On the contrary Doctor, I believe I can help you." he replied. Her reaction was interesting. In a flash, almost too quick to catch, he saw he trying to assess the possibilty that he was some sort of lunatic or worse, religious fanatic. But her curiousity won out after a brief battle because she gave a small confused smile and asked him to go on. She even put her pen down as if to demonstrate that he did indeed have her attention.

"It's hard, messy work, being a doctor, isn't it? Not what you pictured at all when you were in school. No glamour, no fancy dress parties, just an endless line of people, all needing your help, and you want to help them still, you haven't lost that yet. It's just so hard. Never enough time, never enough doctors, never enough supplies." For emphasis of his point, he used the tip of his umbrella to nudge her paperwork. Budgets, he could tell. "If you aren't trying to stitch the patients up, you're trying to keep this place running on...well.. ..." he cast his eyes disdainfully on a discolored ceiling tile, "paste and good intentions."

"Are you here to make a donation? Maybe volunteer? I'm in need of a good orderly." she said with a touch of humor, still keeping a polite smile on. She had no idea what was going on.

He scoffed a little, returning her polite smile with the smallest of chuckle. "I fear I would be overqualified." as good as he was at cleaning up messes... "No, as I said before, I am here to help you. To be more precise, I think we can help each other."

"How's that?" she asked. She wore a fascinating combination of expressions now...skepticism, amusement, a touch of indignance, a dash of annoyance, they all played across her features. Mycroft  
>studied her for a full minute before replying. This was the tricky part.<p>

"You are familiar with Dr. John H. Watson?"

"Yes, but I don' t..."

He held up his hand to stop her for the moment, "I was asking to be polite. I know you have a personal relationship with the doctor. You also know his flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, correct?"

Not sure if she was allowed to speak now, she nodded, and he continued. "What I'd like to offer you is a weekly sum, in this amount," Anthea ceased her typing to remove a card from her pocket and slide it across the desk, "donated to your facility here. In exchange for this much needed sum, I ask only that you pass on to me information on Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson."

"I don't understand. What sort of information?" she asked, not rejecting the idea out of hand.

"Oh nothing you'd feel betrays a trust, nothing.. ...tawdry . Just common things. How Dr. Watson is doing, mentally, how are he and Mr. Holmes are getting along, any problems he might mention."

"And you'd pay me for that?" Again, the idea was not rejected.

"We are really in the same business, Sarah... ..may I call you Sarah?" she nodded again. "The business of helping people. This information would help me immensely, and in return, I will help you by making sure this amount," On que, Anthea stopped typing and slid a card across the desk, "is deposited in the discretionary funds account, to be used however it is needed."

He had caught her now. He saw that look in her eyes, the look of a mouse in a trap. Maybe if her relationship with John was more serious, maybe if she didn't suspect that he and Sherlock had romantic ferlings for each other, maybe if her those facts hadn't made her bitter...but it had, and now she asked him, "Would _all_ of the money need to go to the Surgery?"

Mycroft smiled as he rose from his chair and extended his hand to her to seal the deal. "I am sure we can come to an arrangement."


	2. Chapter 2

**PULLING THE STRINGS, FILE TWO: ELDER CARE**

**A/N: First, thank you always to Roxanne-Michal for her feedback and help. Go read her story. It is a delicious wafer of fanfic. Also thanks to Jodi2011, your review=awesome and I will put on my thinking cap for Molly (clearly not a traitor like some people). Lastly, a small warning that this chapter is very dark and some of the content might be upsetting. Don't enjoy those parts but please enjoy the rest!**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

For the duration of his career being the British government, Mycroft only ever had 4 assistants. During his slow climb to power, supervisors assigned them to him but he found their choices by and large horrid. Two glorified typists in short skirts and one man so dull that it was hard to stay awake in the same room as him. They were all terrible fits.

He would have liked to take credit for finding his present assistant, like unearthing a ruby from the mud, but sadly this was not the case. She was already a clever and capable creature when he met her, far more clever and capable then the official she worked for. Utterly wasted. With a few phone calls, he set that situation right. While she never mentioned it, Mycroft could tell she was grateful for the change, and she proved her worth daily. To say that he couldn't have done it without her was a literal statement. Not only did she streamline his business affairs but everytime Mycroft would be beside himself for forgetting a birthday or trying to figure out how to get his mother to go on holiday, she would smile and say "It's taken care of."

To be without Alexis today (always Alexis on Fridays) felt like being without an arm or a leg. Instead, he had a burly thug in a suit named Craig who didn't even have a cellular. The change was jarring but necessary. As they pulled up to the facility, he reminded Craig not to speak and the driver to wait. If all went well, they wouldn't be long.

The care center was truly one of the most depressing places he had ever set foot in (and he had been to Guantanamo). Peeling paint a horrible olive color, the smell of bleach barely concealing the smell of old urine and slow death. His fingers involuntarily clutched his umbrella tighter as he was overwhelmed by the desire to touch nothing in this place. He and Craig bypassed the nurses station and continued down the hall of residential rooms, peeking in open doors as they went. The fact that room 37 was at the end of a hall with vacant rooms next to and across from it was a stroke of good luck. No one saw as they entered and then shut the door discreetly behind them.

As he sat down next to the bed, Mycroft observed the man lying in it. He had oxygen tubing under his nostils and an IV running in to a stick-thin arm. His fingernails were brittle, his eyes yellow with disease and his voice was a weak rasp as he asked what they were doing there. He seemed so harmless, and yet...

"I'm here to speak to you about your daughter." Mycroft said. "You've been trying to contact her. You sent her letters. You asked her for money."

As he was speaking, Craig was moving around the room to shut the blinds on the sole window. "I thought we had an agreement."

The man shook his head in confusion, looking at Mycroft and Craig alternately. Maybe the drugs had addled him? No. Mycroft reminded himself that despite appearances, this was not a frail creature. He brought his umbrella down against the bed railing with a loud clank to make sure the man was paying attention to him. "Yes." he said darkly. "You had an agreement with _me_, and now you've broken it. Do I need to remind you? You got the pleasure of living out your days here peacefully, so long as you had the good manners to leave her alone..." Mycroft thought that he had been very generous, this hellhole was so much better than he deserved.

"She's a good girl..." the man muttered defensively, no longer feigning senility "got a little money. Doin' alright for herself. She'd want to help out her old Dad."

"No. She wouldn't. What she wants to do is live her life, not thinking about the times that you beat her with an iron, or threw the china at her. Her success has little to nothing to do with you, don't be so repugnant as to pretend that you should benefit from it."

Craig glanced at Mycroft and he realized that his voice had grown louder than he intended. He took a minute to compose himself. "I agreed to pay for your residence here on the condition that you left her alone. I explained to you that if you did not, there were far worse places to die, and in far less pleasant ways. Did you believe me when I told you these things?"

The man did not respond, which Mycroft took as response in and of itself. He nodded to Craig and Craig slowly bent the tube controlling the man's oxygen supply.

"Do you believe me now?"

This time, the man gave the slightest wobble of his head. Craig let go of the oxygen. Mycroft leaned back in his chair. He could leave it at this, but it seemed untidy. He thought of her puffy eyes and distraction, the obvious signs that she had spent the night crying. He thought of the hospital records he had obtained from her childhood. Broken arms. A skull fracture. Did he trust the word of a man who would do that to his own daughter?

Mycroft decided that no, he couldn't. Much like the abuse he inflicted years ago, this man wouldn't stop now either. He simply couldn't have that. He needed his assistant in top form. He couldn't...worry about her all the time. He couldn't allow her to have another night of crying. Not when he could have prevented it.

Momentarily, he pondered how upset she would be to hear of her father's death. She may ask for a day off (a tolerable inconvenience, he supposed). But secretly, she would be happy. Yes...that quite settled it. Mycroft rose up from his seat and adjusted his jacket, he would wait in the car. That was why Craig was here. "Make sure it looks like natural causes."

He closed the door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**PULLING THE STRINGS: FILE THREE - HOLMES 1**

**A/N: This is my attempt at something a little bit lighter. Thank you to Roxanne-Michal for being my taste tester. Don't worry, my next installment will return you to your normal schedule of rapier wit and murky broody existentialism. Until then, enjoy, and remember that the intellectual properties contained within are all owned by their respective creators (so I get credit for the bee).**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Tell me a story."

Mycroft looked up from his math book, the expression of disbelief he wore was comical. "You cannot be serious."

The other boy nodded solemnly, then his dark eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Is that not right? I'm keeping a time table. Fifteen minutes ago I asked for juice. So it should be time for a story."

"Time table?" he asked, shutting the book. He hated to admit that he was a little curious.

"I might never be this sick again. I need to do all the research I can." To illustrate his point, he coughed meekly.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. Forget becoming a barrister, his brother should consider taking to the stage with a performance like that. "Sherlock," he said patiently, "You have bronchitis. Not the bubonic plague. Now, I really need to get study."

"**Dull.**" the boy insisted. "**Story."**

"Alright." He took a minute to wonder if Sherlock's 'research' was on the appropriate behaviour of ill children or, more likely, on how much leeway said ill child would get from his caretakers before someone stuffed them up a chimney. Either was possible. "There once was a boy named Sherlock who annoyed everyone around him by simultaneously being both the smartest and most needy individual in any room. His elder brother, who everyone agreed was usually the most handsome and charming person in any room, had been asked to look after Sherlock while Mummy entertained some of Father's business acquaintances. Instead of being grateful that Mycroft was taking time out of his holiday to see to his care, Sherlock had so far asked for tea, then requested his stuffed bumble bee, then wanted more pillows, and then juice, and now a story. But at the very last moment, Sherlock decided that what he wanted most in the world was to sleep quietly for the next few hours so that Mycroft could have some peace before he was tempted to suffocate Sherlock."

He glowered. Sherlock glowered back. It was impressive to see the way that his young face twisted itself up until he resembled a cod. Certain that victory was his, Mycroft opened up his book and was prepared to settle back in when he was dealt an incredibly low blow. He heard it before he saw it. Sniffling.

_No, he wouldn't dare..._

Sure enough, Sherlock was now crying. The last bastion of a desperate boy.

"I'm...going..." more sniffling "to tell Mother..."

"No! No, I surrender. I'll tell you a story."

"A mystery."

"Alright, a mystery. Give me a minute to think."

Sherlock was silent and patient while Mycroft wove a tale in his head. He dried off his face and scooted down in to his pillow, Hercule the bee clutched in one hand.

"Once upon a time, there was a lonely old miser. He lived by himself in a grand manse upon a hill with no one but his cats to keep him company. Because of his solitary nature, no one knew when the old man died. The police were alerted only when a charity collector reported a horrid smell. An inspector was summoned..."

"What was his name?"

"Detective Inspector Holmes, now don't interrupt me. Inspector Holmes broke the lock on the door and entered the house. He was nearly assaulted by the smell of cat urine. They clearly had the run of the place now. After a short search, he eliminated all possibilities except for the study, which was also locked. It was in there that Holmes found the miser, as well as a single expired tabby cat. There was only one door, and windows in the room were also locked, all from the inside."

Before he could revel in his quick bit of story, Sherlock said, "The killer left the study door open but the cat pushed the door closed and it locked when it shut. Honestly, it's like you're not even trying."

"Sorry. I left my Agatha Christie in the kitchen."

They lapsed in to silence after that. Mycroft was finally able to get some serious studying done. He thought Sherlock might have fallen asleep until a tiny voice said "But I don't want to be a Detective Inspector."

"Pardon?"

"Like in your story. I don't want to be a policeman. They have too many rules."

"Well no one said you had to be."

"Father wants me to study law. I don't want to do that either."

Now, this was an interesting conversation. Mycroft's attention was captured yet again. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to be clever. I _am _clever, but I want everyone to know that I'm clever. I want to be so brilliant that no one will care if I am... strange." His voice trembled a little bit.

Mycroft felt an extremely unusual swell of affection for Sherlock. He was so young, too young to carry the burden of being 'that odd Holmes boy'.

"Maybe if you tried to be a little bit more like everyone else, it wouldn't be so bad."

"But I'm not, and trying would just be pretending. I don't want to have to pretend forever."

Mycroft knew that a healthy Sherlock would never make such a confession. It was too fraught with emotion, and Sherlock perferred to think he was above all of that. He knew that if he ever brought it up, Sherlock would pretend it never happened.

Just like he knew that Sherlock would never ask for his help. He would pester him for favors, and bother him relentlessly to entertain him when bored, but he wouldn't admit to needing help. But everyone needed help sometimes, even little boys that would grow in to great geniuses.

Mycroft supposed that he would just need to figure out how to help him without him figuring out about it. He had no one else, and, after all, what were brothers for?


	4. Chapter 4

**Pulling The Strings - File: Watson**

During his lifetime, Sherlock Holmes would be described as many things. A childish petulant genius. Brilliant and mad and aloof. Wise. Frightening. All of those words suited him well. But few would ever describe him as human, someone wrought with emotions.

Mycroft didn't think he had ever seen him look so human. So frail. When did his hair get so gray? Surely not since he had last seen him. He seemed to have shrunk as well, as if he was diminishing in his grief.

He was so still as he sat there listening. The only thing that moved were his eyes as they watched the rain beating against the window. He never even looked at her.

"I really do need your help." she continued. "I've asked Mum but she said she wouldn't have anything nice to say. There isn't anyone else. Mr. Holmes, are you listening?"

He wasn't, Mycroft saw, not anymore. He spoke for him. "I'll make sure he takes care of it."

"Thank you so much. It's tommorrow at two, down on Whibley Street."

Mycroft took in a few more details as he showed her out. Sherlock had not moved from his chair when he came back, but he was again letting his eyes do all the work. He glowered magnificently at him.

"You shouldn't have agreed to it for me. I won't do it."

"Oh, and why not?"

"I wouldn't know what to say."

Mycroft gave him a stern look that said exactly what he thought of that statement. Sherlock went back to watching the rain. When he spoke again, Mycroft sensed that he was merely thinking aloud and he tried to blend in to the background as much as possible.

"What _**could **_I say? That I loved him? They wouldn't understand. If I loved him, why weren't we lovers? They would need to label it, wouldn't accept that it was enough for me to know he was there. They couldn't comprehend someone completing your life so well if they can't make it sexual, and I won't...I refuse to turn his memory in to that."

He paused to take a sip of cold tea. Mycroft still said nothing, and he pretended not to notice his tears. "Should I say that since I was a child I was told that I was lacking parts of myself, and that I met John and suddenly there were all my missing pieces? That he made it alright for me to be myself? That no one will feel his loss more acutely than me? Yes, they would love to hear that, with his ex wife and daughter in the front pew." He snorted at the thought.

"Maybe they need to hear it though. It would not to the worst thing in the world to let them try and understand."

Sherlock nodded reluctantly. When he was preparing to leave, Mycroft reminded him that he would pick him up the following day at noon (he agreed), he asked if he wanted his violin (he shook his head), and he urged him again to try and put together a eulogy. He would, Mycroft knew. This time and for this man. He was fairly certain that when he himself died, the most Sherlock would do was see to it that he was buried with the good umbrella.

It was strange, he thought as he made his way down the stairs. It wasn't just Sherlock but Baker Street itself that seemed to have gotten smaller. The kitchen still smelled of John's pasta sauce. His coat was still hanging by the door and his glasses were on the coffee table. But the building seemed to know he was never coming home again and it had wrapped itself in gloom and shadows like mourning clothes. Was the entire world greiving?

The next day, after dressing carefully, he directed the driver back to Baker Street. As if to spite yesterday's perfect atmostphere, the weather had cleared and it seemed like it was going to be a beautiful day. There was irony in that.

Mycroft rapped on the door several times. He didn't expect Sherlock to actually answer but he had hoped. After perhaps five minutes, he let himself in.

"Sherlock?"

He wasn't in the living room or the kitchen. He checked his bedroom and called out to him again.

"Sherlock?"

This time, he faintly heard a groan of reply. Of course. He was upstairs.

He had very few occasions to visit John's room but it was much as he expected it. Comfortable and homey. Currently, there was an elderly consulting detective sprawled across the tan bed spread that somewhat clashed with the decor. Also out of place were wads of paper scattered across the floor. Sherlock's aborted attempts, he supposed. He picked them up carefully as he made his way over to his brother.

He was just reaching out to shake him when Sherlock shifted in his sleep and revealed the rest of the bed's contents. A notepad, a pen, a belt and a syringe.

"Oh Sherlock..." he sighed in disappointment.

He stirred again at the sound of his name and opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings and Mycroft's disapproval. "I tried." he muttered. "I tried to put it down in words. How lonely I am now. How now, until the day I die, I am always going to be looking for someone next to me and no one will be there. It was all too much. I just," he nodded to the syringe, "I just wanted to remember the good times again, being young together, running through the streets of London."

He tried to sit up and Mycroft took his arm to help him, but the younger man wrenched out of his grip. "Is this what it is like to get old? Is this _God's plan?_ To kill us with goodbyes until we simply give up? They're **all gone **Mycroft. How many funerals have I been to in the last five years? Lestrade, Ainsley, even Anderson who I never thought I would miss... . ... ...and I just can't do it anymore. Not this time. Not to John. I can't say goodbye to him. I will not put on my nice suit and sing the hymns and watch them throw dirt on the coffin."

With his eyes, he pleaded for Mycroft to understand. He pleaded with things unsaid, things he never could say. In an act of spontaneity, he hugged his younger brother fiercely to let him know that he did understand, that he would take care of it and as usual, Sherlock wouldn't even have to ask.

He left him curled up on the bed, covered up and feigning sleep. Syringe deposited somewhere safe. As Mycroft stood in Sherlock's place at the front of the church, he hoped desperately to not let down the memory of a friendship so remarkable that although no one understood it, everyone envied it. _Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. _

"We are here today to pay our respects to John H. Watson..."


End file.
